An open letter to new users from a previous new user. :) [Archive]

Glynnux

July 5th, 2013, 09:58 PM

Open letter to newbies.
At first everything new seems strange. Keeping an open mind is essential. Try to be patient with others AND with yourself.
With Ubuntu I haven't found anything that couldn't be fixed provided the correct search term was used. Search terms are free, you can use as many as you like, either in your favourite web browser or at the top right of these pages.

After a short while you find you have become conversant with how things work (and still you don't know everything but you are great at 'search').
You find that problems can be easily resolved (they probably weren't problems at all, you were maybe just unfamiliar - we've been there).
One day you find that you are completely at ease in your new environment. You realise that you don't have to know everything and if you need some help with something it's okay, you know how to work through things.
It takes a little time. You can pass that time with a degree of frustration or take it in good spirit and not get phased. Eventually, with a little luck, you still feel Life is good.

I had a few frustrations at first but from experience I knew that I was probably half of the problem.
Now if I get a problem I know it's of my own doing 99.999% of the time. Even being this dumb I can still do anything I want with Ubuntu.

Please note how few previous posts I've made - that's because it doesn't add on how many times I used 'search'. :)

sudodus

July 5th, 2013, 10:19 PM

Great advice :-)

Gnawnsense

July 6th, 2013, 01:16 AM

Good post, indeed.

jockyburns

July 6th, 2013, 01:17 AM

Biggest frustration I've had with Ubuntu, is actually on these forums, where people seem to assume you will know how to use the terminal, like a seasoned pro.. Ahh do this, type in that, sudo this, sudo that and everything will be alright. I came to Ubuntu from years of using ******* , where almost everything is done for you. Download the file, click install. Make a cup of tea, and 5 minutes later the program's installed. Perhaps it's me being lazy, or preferring things to be done automatically (that's made me lazy) . Asking some questions on here ( at times) seems to meet with a terminal response (which isn't what most users want to hear) . I think most new users have probably came here from a ******* background and are quite apprehensive of opening a terminal and typing anything in the window that opens.;)

PJs Ronin

July 6th, 2013, 04:45 AM

Sometimes OP's advice is difficult to follow, especially when desktop screenshots are posted by those with greater knowledge. I found myself tripping over my own eagerness on many occasions as I tried to make my Ubuntu look like their Ubuntu. Eventually, I settled on 13.04 with Unity and weathered many a storm until I had a reliable, stable and attractive system. I also agree that the search function is one that all noobs should become familiar, as is simply reading lots b4 asking... although asking questions should never be discouraged.

Having said that, I am about to once again ignore my own good advice (if it ain't broke, don't try and fix it) and head off to the realm that I know as Gnome Hell. Seems I never learn.

Peripheral Visionary

July 6th, 2013, 08:34 AM

I found this blog post and thought it fit this thread perfectly: A Linux Hitchhiker (http://wp.me/p2fr89-31)

stalkingwolf

July 6th, 2013, 04:14 PM

The reason a lot of fixes and other things are given in CLI is it is simpler. there are many different flavors and DE and each is or can be a bit different to do things in.
for instance in my house i have 6 different flavors running on 5 different computers . i have 2 apps i install on everything i use CLI to do it and they install the same on all of them. so anyone using one of the flavors i use i can just give them the commands and tell them just copy and paset these into the terminal one at a time. then bobs your uncle. (and have my best so far is a complete install of zorin with extras
over the phone 2400 miles away.) no poke this prod that stand on your left foo and slide that thing then click 4 times.

It has been brought to my attention that we as adults make things far to difficult for our selves. Back around easter i gave a laptop to the 11 year old son of a friend. The child was having problems in school
primarily reading and attention. I installed edubuntu on it and sent it off.

I was online with his Mother on cam the day it arrived. She unpacked it set it up and showed him how to log in and where to find a couple things. He never looked back. the rest of the day she and i watched him play games and explore the different things available. He had home work to do on line during his vacation, she had set a time of no less than 1 hr a day. By the second day he had his laptop he was asking to do 2 and 3 hrs. He had also discovered he could make a screen saver in one of his games and had made one.
We were facinated and spent many hours just watching him discover new things.

When was the last time any of us just sat down and played with an OS ? We just want to get it up and going.

farrinux

July 6th, 2013, 04:57 PM

Well said Glynnux! I too have traveled this road has many or most here have. The better I get with search and the better I get with Ubuntu the less trouble I have. The kicker is I have far less trouble in Ubuntu than I did with the major paid for OS.

TNFrank

July 6th, 2013, 10:24 PM

Ditto to having some folks talk over my(our) head when they try to explain stuff. Now I know how others feel when I try to talk firearms or cars/trucks to them. LOL.
I understand it's easy to assume that others know what you know when you try to explain things to them but such is not the case most of the time. Many of us need "Baby Steps" in doing things with or to our computers. Even I need a basic approach and I've got a Tech Degree from DeVry and a CAD/Detailed Drafting Degree from TN. Tech AND I took an A+ Cert course a few years ago but I still need things explained to me in simple terms.
I too like a computer to do what I tell it, that's why I like Linux. Windows Op Systems always try to tell you how you're going to do it but with Linux you can go to Terminal and with a few simple commands you tell your computer what's going to take place.
For me Ubuntu 12.04LTS is about as easy as it gets for an Op System. Heck, I'll even go so far as to say that I like it better then OS X 10.3.9 that I used on my (now dead)iMac and I thought it was pretty intuitive but Ubuntu 12.04LTS is even more so. I don't understand why so many complain about Unity, I like it. Of course I've not used a Non-Unity version so I've got nothing to compare it to but for me having everything I need at my finger tips on the dock on the left of the screen is pretty nice IMHO.
Something else I really like about Linux is that it'll run on older, less expensive computers. Unlike Windows bloated Op System that needs tons of RAM and a ultra fast processor to make it work, Linux can run on any decent single core with a couple GB's of RAM. That means I can actually afford to buy a laptop or desktop for a couple hundred that'll actually work quite well using Linux. I'm diffidently sold on Linux, it'll be my Op System of choice from here on out. Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth. ;)

Double.J

July 7th, 2013, 01:21 AM

Hi TNFrank,

I think you have a point about overly technical responses - I know I do it. Where possible I try and explain what the commands I type out will do.

I will say though that Ubuntu Forums has for a long time been the best linux forum for community, and it's why I keep comming back. In my early days back with debian potato, being the new guy really was like being a dumba** at the gate of nerdvana - almost any irc/mailist/forum question was met with 'read the manual'... we've come a long way.

I do understand that command line instructions are daunting - we've all been there, but as stated above, it is often the best system to use for trouble shooting remotely - it means you know exactly what the person at the other end has done, where it's stopped working, they can paste failed commands and reports, and usually shortens solutions by a couple of pages. when a user is really adament not to use the CLI I always try and help get them through it, but it is rarely easy, besides, we're a huge community now - if someone posts risky commands, another user will flag it almost immediatly :)

Don't worry we've all been there. I remember there was a thread in the cafe a year or so ago - 'what was your first ever post?' not relevent on UF, but I still know what my first ever question to a mailing list was;
"I'm following the partitioning guide to the letter, but I keep getting an error about mountpoints" I went on to ask about what I was supposed to mount where, what /home, /boot, /, all meant etc - I didn't have a clue! just remember everyone here once upon a time had never held a mouse ;)

Gnawnsense

July 7th, 2013, 01:31 AM

Biggest frustration I've had with Ubuntu, is actually on these forums, where people seem to assume you will know how to use the terminal, like a seasoned pro..

That was probably one of the things that got me hung up more than anything when I was originally trying to troubleshoot my AMD driver woes for the last.. 5 years, off and on.

After installing and running into the typical problems I was used to having, I'd head to the forums for assistance. People were definitely eager to help me, however, I ended up breaking some things along the way due to lack of understanding the terminal commands and whatnot properly. The instructions were there, and valid, but just entirely over my head as a completely new user.

It's definitely not something I'm complaining about. It actually lead to me having a much better understanding about Xorg and display drivers in general with Linux. But at the same time, there are those times where you just wish that the help you were receiving was a bit more novice friendly just so you can avoid playing and tinking around and get the fix implemented.

I'm just always thankful there's so many people eager to help.

monkeybrain2012

July 7th, 2013, 03:02 AM

Irihapeti

July 7th, 2013, 03:12 AM

Well this may come across as scary advice but you learn a lot more and faster if you break a few things and try to fix them. :)

If you don't do risky things then you would only learn very slowly. So make a partition with a test install and mess around. I know, it may not be entirely easy to make a test install in a partition for a truly new beginers, but there are many tutorials on the web. When I started out with 10.04 I had no prior experience with Linux and I used Windows only for very basic stuffs. All I knew was click .exe and install antivirus, in other words I was a complete idiot when it came to computers. But someone gave me an old computer and in a week I was able to install Ubuntu and blacklist a problematic wifi driver, in lesss than a month I was able to multiboot on a spare hard drive. It wasn't as hard as it sounds.

+1 to that!

I used to have a sig that said, "You haven't lived until you've borked your system at least once". But the real achievement is borking a system and then being able to recover it. If you experiment on a non-vital partition, that time may come sooner than you think. You may find that it increases your confidence with troubleshooting Windows installs as well.

t0p

July 7th, 2013, 04:06 PM

Peripheral Visionary

July 7th, 2013, 06:00 PM

I started keeping a little "Linux journal" after I saw how much it helped someone else to keep a list of helpful commands and ways of solving common problems. He didn't have to keep Googling and searching when he ran into something he remembered seeing before, he just went back to his notes and found out what had worked previously.

su:bhatta

July 8th, 2013, 06:03 AM

I found this blog post and thought it fit this thread perfectly: A Linux Hitchhiker (http://wp.me/p2fr89-31)

Really liked that blogpost u shared....sums it up for people like me...

Hitch Hiker's guide to the Galaxy of GNU/Linux.....

farrinux

July 8th, 2013, 06:22 AM

Worries about CLI solutions? I really can't see the problem.

You post the symptoms, another user gives you some terminal commands to diagnose and/or fix the problem. All you gotta do is copy and paste these commands, with obvious editing (for username, directory etc). Copy and paste. That stuff's very old, and very respected, because it WORKS!

Don't fear the terminal. It won't bite. Just take the time to learn its ways and POW! you're Superman!

On this forum the above statement is true. However most people new to Ubuntu and Linux or any other new OS (I still remember my DOS days.) have a certain trust level or lack of. It's one of life's conundrums! I do not know what I am doing, I ask for help, does this person know or are they actually trying to do harm.

It's also hard to explain things to a person who is absolutely new to something. From their point of view even the simple things may be "above their heads". But thats the way the cookie crumbles. With time and understanding you will find that most of the help you got was valid and probably the easiest way to do it

monkeybrain2012

July 8th, 2013, 06:30 AM

Worries about CLI solutions? I really can't see the problem.

You post the symptoms, another user gives you some terminal commands to diagnose and/or fix the problem. All you gotta do is copy and paste these commands, with obvious editing (for username, directory etc). Copy and paste. That stuff's very old, and very respected, because it WORKS!

Don't fear the terminal. It won't bite. Just take the time to learn its ways and POW! you're Superman!

Well copy and paste may work but just posting a bunch of commands with no explanation of what they do is not good for learning and the person who cuts and pastes may not be able to make the simple modifications when a similar problem arises. There are some really good tutorials where they actually try to explain something conceptually rather than posting a bunch of gibberish and tell you to cut and paste them and it works as if by magic,--or it doesn't and you have no clue why,-- but such tutorials are relatively rare.

mastablasta

July 8th, 2013, 01:16 PM

Well copy and paste may work but just posting a bunch of commands with no explanation of what they do is not good for learning and the person who cuts and pastes may not be able to make the simple modifications when a similar problem arises. There are some really good tutorials where they actually try to explain something conceptually rather than posting a bunch of gibberish and tell you to cut and paste them and it works as if by magic,--or it doesn't and you have no clue why,-- but such tutorials are relatively rare.

official doumentation has explanations with commands. tutorials also. people here will usualyl also give you explanation on what the command does.

the problem is you might be using Unity, but i don't. I know a few commands on how to get the info on hardware for example bu ti have no idea where it is in Unity. I use Kubuntu and occasionally Xubuntu. for example Kubutnu doesn't have software center it has Muon. it doesn't have synaptic as it has Muon Package manager. so if i know the command for the solution i will give it, becuase i don't know where you can find that in Unity or what the GUI programme for that command is called.

further more same command will work across all official Ubuntu version. possibly even with other ubuntu derivatives such as Mint for example. so a solution with CLI can help so many people other than strict Ubuntu users.

i didn't understand the CLI help thing at first but now i do. i also think it is good to have a place like Ubuntu manual that provides GUI instructions for most common problems and troubleshootings. and introduces people to the new OS.

edit: forgot to mention the Psychocats GUI tutorials and explanations - pure awesome for newbies as well as more seasoned users.

mike acker

July 8th, 2013, 01:21 PM

you basic thought is good but there are some serious rough edges on Ubuntu that really need to be fixed. the one that gives me the most trouble is "samba". that whole thing needs to be junked, deleted, and trashed and re-worked from the start.

Linuxratty

July 8th, 2013, 06:21 PM

I found this blog post and thought it fit this thread perfectly: A Linux Hitchhiker (http://wp.me/p2fr89-31)

Really nice blog. Thank you for this.
At Linux Internationals,when I've been helped with the terminal, I am told what each command will do so I have a clear understanding of what will be accomplished.

Glynnux

July 10th, 2013, 02:16 AM

I found this blog post and thought it fit this thread perfectly: A Linux Hitchhiker (http://wp.me/p2fr89-31)

I like the hitchhiker analogy. With Linux you get offered a lift, with MS Windows it's a taxi ride. The meters always on and all diversions, toll routes and scenic routes are included in your ride.

[In the past few days I've had a spam mail telling me I signed up for some MS related anti-spyware last year....no I didn't... and then on two different websites I was told there were errors with my registry (teehee) and I had a serious memory leak. At the bottom of my screen I could see a steady 74mb of ram being used out of the available 3.49gb (chuckle). ]

I appreciate that some users will presume that the person asking for help has a reasonable level of competence and fire off some well intentioned advice straight over his/her head. I've often followed install instructions from liberiangeek (for instance an internet search for "install google earth in 12.10") and he's spot on EXCEPT I noted he doesn't warn that you will be asked to enter your password and also the thing I remember spooking me...you type your password in the terminal for the first time and think your keyboard stopped working because there's no apparent activity.

It's probably good practice to assume a user has little experience and offer the extra info to help them understand what they're doing and what will happen. On the other hand someone may have limited time and simply offer up the basics. That's probably better than a blank response, at least the person asking can say "I don't understand, I'm not familiar with the terminal". We've all met the scary terminal for the first time and pondered whether we were about to fry the hardware and thrust the neighbourhood into darkness. :D

I also agree that it's a fine idea to install a second copy of the OS in a seperate partition. You can gain a lot of confidence trying things there first.